Beds AAA 10k

10k Road Club Championship Race

The Club Championships race for 10k this year was in Bedford. With Pete Mackrell involved in the organisation and 4 other club members helping him out, the race had a very LBAC feel around it.

As the 15 competitors wearing Purple and Gold rocked up at the Bedford Athletics track to collect numbers it was all rather friendly and could well have been the Leighton 10 that we had entered. Pete Mackrell and Chris Norman were hunched over a laptop working on a spreadsheet covered in numbers and figures, Stu Blofeld was handing out the numbers and pins with a cheery smile and words of encouragement, Richard Inchley and Uncle Pete were then milling about near the start and later marshaling and Chris Dimmock was proudly offering water to all those that finished. It was hard to avoid our club members!

The Beds AAA 10k is held in Bedford along the old railway track that goes along the Great Ouse from the centre of town out towards the east of Bedford and used to end up in Sandy. The creates a good flat course but with enough interesting bits to keep you from getting bored. One of the “interesting bits” is the bridge over the A421 which is an annoying up and down about a mile in and then with about a mile to go, just when you don’t want to break your rhythm!

The course is an out and back of sorts, but with a loop around some lakes with some off-road, trail paths before heading back.

As we all know, it’s been difficult getting out and running with all the heat around and the weather forecast suggested some much needed rain was on it’s way that evening. Nobody really wanted a torrential downpour when trying to run hard in a 10k, but at the same time a quick cooling off may have been nice! Instead it came just as some of us were finishing our cool downs and thankfully we had all finished racing. The warm down became a quick dash to the car before the heavens opened.

We had 13 men competing for the club champs, but only 2 ladies, with Jordan Clay taking the men’s prize in a time of 34:12 and 4^th place overall, and Amy Inchley coming home as first LBAC lady and 5^th lady overall in 45:01.

Susan Johnson also took home the F60 prize with a time of 01:08:45 so congratulations to her too.

The men’s team of Jordan, Pete, Stuart Read and Chris George also won the team result for the day, although only just! Tied on 59 points after the first 4 runners were counted, LBAC won because Chris finished higher up than North Herts’ 4^th runner. They all count!

Well done to all those who ran and particular thanks to Beds AAA for the race and those from LBAC who made it possible! Full results can be found here, with the Club Champs results below.

Gender Position	Name	Time	Prize
4	Jordan Clay	34:12
13	Peter Mackrell	35:08
20	Stuart Read	36:01	PB
22	Chris George	36:16	PB
25	Stuart Blofeld	36:32	PB
26	Andy Inchley	36:44
35	Ben Corfield	37:43
45	Sam Dear	38:40
59	Steve Sharples	39:44
67	Matthew Brooks	40:29
69	Warren Rose	40:54
88	Alfie Blaber	43:32
91	Nick Clay	44:08
97	Amy Inchley	45:01
184	Susan Johnson	1:08:45	F60 Winner